Edward Wright
English mathematician and cartographer (1561-1615) · Academics · Died at 54
Edward Wright was an English mathematician and cartographer noted for his book Certaine Errors in Navigation, which for the first time explained the mathematical basis of the Mercator projection by building on the works of Pedro Nunes, and set out a reference table giving the linear scale multiplication factor as a...
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Hilliard's portrait of George, Earl of Cumberland (c. 1590, detail). Wright dedicated his work Certaine Errors in Navigation (1599) to him.
Hondius made use of Wright's calculations without acknowledgment in his "Christian Knight Map" of 1597, prompting Wright to publish Certaine Errors in Navigation in 1599.
Edward Wright's map "for sailing to the Isles of Azores" (c. 1595), the first to be prepared according to his projection
Wright's "Chart of the World on Mercator's Projection" (c. 1599), otherwise known as the Wright-Molyneux map
The New River at Enfield Town Park in London - photographed on 3 February 2008
The Scotsman John Napier (1550-1617), the inventor of logarithms, depicted in an engraving by Samuel Freeman (1773-1857) based on a 1616 painting at the University of Edinburgh
Title page of Wright's Certaine Errors in Navigation (Second edition, 1610)About this person
Edward Wright was an English mathematician and cartographer noted for his book Certaine Errors in Navigation, which for the first time explained the mathematical basis of the Mercator projection by building on the works of Pedro Nunes, and set out a reference table giving the linear scale multiplication factor as a function of latitude, calculated for each minute of arc up to a latitude of 75°. This was in fact a table of values of the integral of the secant function, and was the essential step needed to make practical both the making and the navigational use of Mercator charts.
